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Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Here is quilt I made several months ago. I actually finished it up about a week before we moved...luckily...because I knew if I didn't do it before we left Minnesota, it would never get done!

I made this quilt for my friend Lorie. She asked me ages ago if I would make her a quilt. I told her I would, and asked her to get me some paint chips in the colors she wanted. I figured I could just whip up one more quilt...and then I got the paint chips. Let's just say they were colors that I was not used to working with. I had nothing in my stash. I hunted around for a few months for fabrics that matched, but the only things I could find (that weren't hideous) were solids, or near solids. So I finally bought a bunch of quilter's linen because that was the only thing that was even close to the right colors. I started mocking up different quilt designs and sending them to Lorie, but it didn't seem to me like there was one that she was really in love with. So I took a little break to work on other quilts while I waited for inspiration to strike...

...which it inevitably did in the form of this fabulous stencil (above) that I saw at the Paducah quilt show. It is made by The Crafter's Workshop. They have so many cool designs...any one of them could have been an amazing quilt, but I chose to try the rounded squares since I have been loving that shape lately. Oh, and I didn't tell Lorie what I was doing...I decided that I'd just surprise her and hope that she liked it! :)

I mocked this all up in inkscape, using a picture of the stencil as a guide. I figured out the colors, and measurement of each shape. Then I printed out the corner of each square, cut each square out of fabric and rounded the corners and cut out the centers using a rotary cutter. I used Bonash (fusible powder) to attach the shapes to a large piece of background fabric and secured them with a blanket stitch in matching thread.

For the quilting on this one I decided on straight 1/2 inch lines in the background and loops inside the shapes, all in matching thread. Easy, and I like the way it turned out.